Sessions: "Title VII does not prohibit discrimination based on gender identity per se."

GLAAD, the world’s largest LGBTQ media advocacy organization, today expressed outrage at United States Attorney General Jeff Sessions after he reversed a federal policy which was aimed to protect transgender workers from workplace discrimination.

In a move that erased a policy issued by the Obama Administration, Sessions issued a memo to United States attorneys arguing that transgender workers should not receive the same protections under the Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act as other workers receive based on gender and race.

“This outright attack on transgender Americans has proven, once again, that Attorney General Jeff Sessions is working according to his own ideology and not actual justice,” said Sarah Kate Ellis, President and CEO of GLAAD. “Sessions joins President Trump and an administration who are stopping at nothing to strengthen institutional discrimination and walk back the hard-fought progress made by the LGBTQ community.”

Currently, there is no federal law that explicitly prohibits discrimination against transgender employees in the workplace, but the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has previously argued that transgender workers are protected in the workplace as a form of sex discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Now, the Trump Administration is working to dismantle this progress by arguing “Title VII does not prohibit discrimination based on gender identity per se,” according to a copy of Session’s memo obtained by BuzzFeed.

Further, today’s announcement falls directly in line with the Trump Administration’s overall goal to erase LGBTQ acceptance from the fabric of this nation.

In less than a year, President Trump has worked to ban transgender Americans from openly serving “at any capacity” in the U.S. military, remove LGBTQ Americans from the upcoming 2020 United States Census, and erase LGBTQ seniors from critical Medicare and Medicaid surveys. Find more information to Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ extensive anti-LGBTQ record click HERE.

(Editor's note: This post was originally published on SDGLN media partner GLAAD.)